Codifying Processes

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I am in the process of codifying processes in my company. What I am trying to create is a systems based organization whereby we always know the status of any part of any process in our company. The thinking here is that rather than rely on a push system of production management we instead prioritize (get agreement on) what order we will build our cabinets in and then pull resources to the cabinet.

Think of push production being akin to pushing a piece of string across your desk. You can push string. You have to pause periodically and straighten it out but you can in fact push string wherever you want it to go.

Using that same analogy imagine pulling 10 or 50 pieces of string. With a pull system string will go wherever you want it to with fewer tangles that need to be untangled. It's a physics thing. It's how 7-11 stores always have juicyfruit chewing gum when you want it but never have more than a little tiny box in inventory.

Codifying things doesn't add any more process. It merely changes how things are processed. Your production manager is already wandering through the shop, polling people and/or looking for clues.
The Sherlock Holmes method also requires a certain (undefined) amount of mitigation to mop up for when clues go missing or are misinterpreted.

The attached chart shows the basic stages for a faceframe at my shop. The faceframe represents the basic batch size for anything we do. It defines how big the package is when we lift it off the bench, onto the truck and into the house. The package at this level contains everything that it needs and nothing that it doesn't.

Think of a chart like this as being similar to how you would want your auto mechanic to diagnose what needs to happen.

Numbering the processes allows for concatenation and certification. Concatenation creates the Dewey Decimal system. Certification is key to understanding status at any level.

There is a seminal article about lean manufacturing called "Decoding the DNA of TOYOTA". It was published in the Harvard Business Review around the year 2000. If you do much reading about lean thinking you will see this article referenced all the time. It's about 8 pages long and pretty much forms the basis of an MBA program.

In that article they ask the simple question: "How does the worker know he is doing things correctly". What they are asking here is "What is the mechanism to certify that someone knows".

Every company has a system for this to happen. It may be a random system or it may be a codified system but it is a system nonetheless.

Every single occupation that pays large enough wages to actually be able to hire a custom cabinet maker has certification.

The industries that pay lower wages do not have certification.

How many people on this forum could afford to buy any one of the kitchens they put their cabinets into?

I've posted more than once about another article I read in HBR. For those that did not see I will discuss it again.

It was about a man and woman in the peace corp. Their tour of duty was ending and they were about to return stateside. After a couple of years of nonexistent income they decided the only way they could get a leg up was to start a business. (Working as a cabinetmaker in a shop without certification wasn't going to buy them a house.)

The problem was they had no capital. This necessitated that they pick from industries that did not have big barriers to entry. They ended up settling on daycare because that was something they could swing.

The first step of their plan was to ascertain where the weaknesses were. They reasoned that in a mature industry all the low hanging fruit had already been picked. If they were going to be able to harvest a kernel for themselves it would have to be from a hard to see or hard to reach opportunity.

In the daycare industry the problems were that the typical customer was a single mom whose car was always breaking down and who pay her bill on time. When parents don't pick their kids up on time it causes big problems for the daycare operator.

It's not that big a deal to have to stay 15 -30 minutes longer to wait for a parent to show up but it is a big deal to keep a child under your care for more than X amount of hours in a given day. If a daycare has a kid in attendance for longer than a specified amount of time they have to change their classification and now must have a full time nurse on staff. This changes the business model for the mom & pop operation significantly.

The peace corp people made a list of problems like this. The solution they arrived at was to convince Honeywell Manufacturing to provide them a 3000 sq foot room somewhere on the facilities. The daycare operators ended up with a built-in clientele that showed up promptly at 8am and left at 4:30. They got paid on time and they went home on time. Honeywell got an employee that wasn't all frazzled by having to dash all over town twice a day just to find day care.

This was a win-win situation for the daycare operator, the parent and the employer. They got to this solution by focusing on the weak spot.

We have all heard about SWOT analysis. SWOT is a snapshot at any given point in time of your company's strengths-weaknesses-opportunties-threats.

I think the two biggest weaknesses in woodworking are training & choreography. How to make sure people are using the right method and working on the right thing at the right time.

Training usually depends on tribal elders who were trained by tribal elders. Choreography is pretty much ad hoc with tacit communication. For those who skipped latin "ad hoc" means "on the fly" and "tacit" means unspoken or assumed.

This will, of course, get you to the finish line. I can, for example, get to Tacoma from Seattle by driving over to Spokane, dropping down through the Tri-Cities and following the Columbia River come up by way of Portland.

As many would say: There are ten good ways to skin a cat.

Henry Ford said there is the 1st best way, 2nd best way, 3rd best way...............

However, if I came to work for you and saw that chart (with no slots for urination, sneezing or butt scratching), I would run. Away.

I can think of no more soul sucking thing that would drive all the joy and passion out of a human, their work and their life. You will end up with mindless automatons in a few months. Or maybe an empty shop. Is that the goal?

If we were to use the late Professor Hawking as a model, we find that he spent nearly all his waking hours thinking. If he was not dancing, lecturing, or reading lines for his next Simpson's appearance. A great revelation about black holes occurred one night as he was getting ready for bed. Which for him takes 2-3 hours, while he does nothing but think, and his aid prepares everything. He found that his disability afforded him a great luxury - time. Now, if he had lined out a day as strictly and unhappily as you, he may never had done much more than be a novel lecturer.

Because he had this luxury of time (some irony there), he could spend his life fully mindful of the 'problems' that occupied him. And great things were the result, yet he retained his childlike wonder.

Another irony is that his caregivers may have had to list out their day with the detail and depth you have, in order to give Dr Hawking his time.

As we evolve, should it be a goal to deepen one's resolve to narrowly focus on ever finer points of Capitalism? Would we not be better off as a species if we were able to preserve the joy of discovery, the fun of curiosity, the pleasure of nothingness? And do this with our 'business'?

Hawking never referred to what he did as "work'. He thought it was all great fun. He was as a child, wide eyed, as he progressed thru his life. Teaching us about the place we live, but also teaching us to wonder, to questions, to search. And scratch our butts every now and then.

Your response surprises me.
I always look forward to and usually learn something from what you have to say. This this last missive, however, is pure drivel. I don't understand it at all.

How you can jump from a chart that merely indicates status and sequence to "soul sucking" absolutely escapes me. When you come up to a stoplight does your brain start wrapping around existential issues of free will & determinism?

My shop is staffed by a lot of people who aren't in the building at the same time. Many of them don't even work on the same day. How would you pass information from the Sunday guy to the Tuesday guy?

Is he supposed to walk around and look for clues? Do we rely on burma shave signs? Little notes written on plywood sitting on top of piles?

We usually have a dozen work orders underway at any given time. Each work order has a dozen possible statuses of completion. In your utopia how exactly does the Tuesday guy know whether or not the shelves got cut? Is he supposed to look around for clues then build his daily strategy based on those conclusions?

For the record we don't have a time clock. Our worker's schedules are a plus-minus half hour start/stop time. We don't have formal breaks. There is no buzzer. You go to bathroom when you have to pee. If you're hungry you eat. If you want a cigarette you go smoke one. If you forget your lunch you go over to Trader Joes and get a burrito. If your dog needs to go to the vet you take him to the vet.

How you think this is incompatible with crossing putting a check mark next to indicate field position baffles me.

In my town there is a well traveled bluff where you don't have to worry about how fast you drive or what you are going to run into, There are no feeder streets that intersect with this stretch of road. I have never seen a policeman there.

You drive as fast as you want till you get to the top of the hill. At the top you have to stop even if there is nobody else that wants to enter the intersection. It is because of this blinking stop light that you only have to stop for a second before you motor on.

The flat part of the hill starts feeding into neighborhood side streets. It's every man for himself on these streets. There are no stop signs. There are no rules.

The irony here is that the one part of the road that has absolute structure is the part of the road you can fly through the fastest. On the side streets you need to crawl up slowly and look carefully both directions lest you get T-boned by another free spirit driver who don't need no "stinkin" rules.

We all must be disappointed sometimes. Drivel?! I insist on a real critic.

Next time you make love, take the time to generate a chart detailing the steps. Then ask your formerly patient partner how they feel about it. Some things do not lend themselves to precise dissection. To attempt to do so loses the original intent. I will say that I am the first to dissect my work, but only after, and as a method to increase my awareness and enjoyment of what I do.

For the last week and a half, we have discussed a new fabrication problem every morning. Usually of an hour. After a few days, we had graduated from sketches to blocks of wood rough cut, to work out various things in 3d. These get evolved, and evolved again. Today is the day we are to follow our conversations with doing the real thing. Luck of the draw, Justin gets to build the jig that is key to the solution. It may take an evolution or two on that part. This means I get to sand what he does. No problem, I can easily enjoy that.

What we did realize is that we probably drug out the thinking, problem solving part of the job too much. The part we both really enjoy. We actually cut wood today. But we still have the adventure of how it will all pan out, what tweaking may need to be done, how the final product - of this step- will look. Check off that box.

I feel that my work - your work - anyone's work - should be stimulating, uplifting and refreshing. If it is not, then let's get it done and move on. Filling out endless charts for years on end does not help get MY job done. It might help you, or the next shift. But it does so at the expense of my ability to enjoy life, even if a little.

I have had that problem with shifts communicating, or 'hand-offs' as a project went from one to another, or draftsman to shop, or PM to shop. I found some ways to live with that helped. But mostly I organized our work and shop so we would not have to resort to such top down management heavy, soul sucking processes.

It is not that I don't like you. I just don't like the process you describe. I would not last for more than a week before I would be at your door with 2-3 viable alternatives.

I do think you are making automatons. I - and many others- prefer to have autonomous, thinking, acting craftsmen that find their way thru their day with creativity, collaboration, challenge and not a little humor. Gawd help us if we ever lose sight of that.

I also have 10 -12 jobs in line at any time. We may work from 1 to 2 to 3 at a time, with those jobs and 2-3 others also in conversation. We can choose the order we want, the direction and flow. I can go do my work, he can do his. We will help lift or move or solve or draw each other manny times a day - whose chart doe that go on? While we are a shop of two, this also worked when we had a shop of 8. The 1 or 2 new guys were less autonomous - a perk that had to be earned. But I would never have the nerve to hand them such a chart and be able to keep a straight face.

How did I get from here to there (with those terms unidentified) ? I choose to get the most from my life. I grew up with a series of the most horrible bosses one can imagine. Two actually went to jail! I never want to get anywhere near what they did on a daily basis. So I may be overreacting.

I know what it is like to be disrespected, or selectively respected where only the abilities I have that another can profit (exploit) from are utilized while the rest are straitjacketed.

What happens if you find out amongst your box checkers is a person far better at doing what you do than you are? Do you step aside? Do you set up a new series of boxes that will prevent him/her from ever realizing that are better than you? Of course, the right thing to do is step aside. Let the corp have the benefit of such knowledge/ability.

If I had to have a chart, my chart would have one box - "Live life to its fullest" it would be labeled . At the end of each day, I would pause, look around a bit and....check the box.

"When you come up to a stoplight does your brain start wrapping around existential issues of free will & determinism?"

Actually, I wrestle with all that and more long before I get to the damn light.

Have you ever been out in the country, late at night, and come across a light that just happens to turn red as you approach? No one else around for miles. Do you stop? Stop and and then go? Just go?
Where lies your free will?

I gotta go to work -much more fun than this kind of debate. I'm sure you have some boxes to check.

The reason a football team goes into huddle between plays is that they need to agree on a strategy.

In coming up with the strategy they usually try incorporate easy to understand metrics. For the most part they base their strategy on field position. If they are on the 15 yard line they need to know if their 15 yard line or the other guy's 15 yard line. How much time remains on the clock is an important variable. Whether or not it is 1st down, 2nd down, 3rd or 4th is a subset consideration to time on the clock.

They build their play by play strategy based on these metrics. If the metrics are not visible the play tends to fall apart.

They also keep an eye on the score. If they are hopelessly ahead or hopelessly behind they let the redshirts have some play time. Letting the guys on the bench participate is great for morale and helps the team next year because with play time they get to boast of having 50 returning lettermen.

If the score is close and the game a critical one these apprentice footballers have to sit it out.

The scoreboard is well lit up. First down yardage is measured with a chain.

Cabmaker, I think you are over complicating the system. First you need to establish a system and get everyone trained in it. Check boxes won't help, people will just automatically check them whether the function got done or not. Publishing a system is one thing, check boxes are quite another. Cabinet making is really simple if you sick to a system. Eliminate as many costs as possible (check boxes!) Simplify, define flows, don't do anything that the customer isn't willing to pay for.

Do you ever push an empty parts cart back to the beginning of the process? Is that really necessary? It is, only if you have made a check box for it. Otherwise it is just a useless cost, making a check box for it just added 20% to the time required to do something of no value to the customer.

I do not understand this hostility about management though I certainly understand that it exists. Most people in the trades would rather take a beating than participate in management.

You have CNC machines to cut out boxes and you use technology from the days of the civil war to communicate priorities and status.

How you equate a checkbox with pushing a cart back & forth in the shop escapes me.

We communicate with iPads at my shop.
If you think of something that needs to happen you need to order you can update any of these lists from anywhere in the world with a smart phone.

The software is called "Central Scrutinizer". (I am sure David will like that one.)

The first jpeg is HOME. It's the jump off to everything else. All of the shop drawings are parked on the DATA LIST. the SHOP STANDARDS list contains drawings of unique items. If you need to know the minimum size cabinet that will accommodate a Hafele Magic Corner you will find those notes here. We make pencil drawings in our shop just like David does in his. We just store them for easy retrieval in this soul crushing database.

The second JPEG is an ActionList. This is how we track ad hoc work orders. If you need to remember something write it down.

Numbering the list makes it easier to find and talk about a task. If you see a number in yellow that means there is a memo behind the number. Click on the yellow to get more information.

Notice that the customer's names are in no particular order. We enter the projects randomly throughout the day. If you want to know anything else about any job you select a name and hit the "Similar" button. This will bring up everything on the list germane to that customer.

If you write it down on a database you can link it to a video on youtube. There is no reason for a greenhorn to have to get beat up for ten years before he can acquire enough skill to make a living. That's what YouTube is for.

Chordal wrote something about how to produce durable, retrievable information. He was advocating for linen stretched over pine boards.

Im not against checklists, i just wouldnt plan on them checking every last thing they have to do. How did you solve this problem with the doors?

Toyota has proces broken down into small steps. The employee trains to the standard and the standard is present in the workstation. Once trained they dont need to look at the standard to complete it but its there for reference to make sure they maintain the standard. They never check off the things they are doing. Lean is about simplicity. Additionally if yku don't already have a manual system in place an automated one will not make it easier.

My guys are actually pretty good at following lists, This is because it was part of the culture when they signed on. Everybody is grandfathered into the culture they signed onto.

There is a local millwork shop in my town has been in continuous operation for over 120 years, They have been through booms & busts that would put most shops out of business. They have a couple of policies that would make make most cowboy craftsmen chafe yet they always have applicants lined up down the block for an interview. They do a lot of projects like what David posts.

At their company every work order comes with a time card. You punch the time card into the clock when you commence and you punch the time card when you are complete. If that doesn't work for you don't work here.

This company needs to know what things cost so they can bill their time & materials customers and understand their own processes.

They also have an iron clad policy about wearing safety glasses. If the glasses "give you a headache" or cause any other dumbass malady we have all heard before then you simply don't work there.

It is all about free will & determinism.

We don't have a time clock for workers to punch in on. We do a lot of job costing but not so much to track our historical expenses but rather to lower our future ones. It is more important to us to understand how to balance operations and isolate where the relative weaknesses are. This is no different really than what you hope and pray your auto mechanic can do for something that affects you personally. Cars provide a lot of personal freedom. You want your cars to run flawlessly.

We do, however, have a reasonably firm policy about safety glasses. When you are blind you are blind. I want everybody to have a happy and fulfilled life but I don't want to give them the freedom of choice to possibly go blind on my watch.

You make a good point about how at Toyota the steps are written down for each work cell. I have read that these steps are actually faced away from the worker. They are presented instead to to the person who is walking around trying to understand flow in the shop. I think it is called something like GEMBA, which is loosely described here as management by walking around. When I go to my shop I enjoy doing that. I like to walk around and see what things look like or watch a guy work to see what he is doing. The sounds of machinery are like a symphony to me.

That being said if I never had to personally build another cabinet the rest of my life it would be too soon for me.

The early days were really the best. The shop was about ten feet from my back door, it had a potbelly stove. I would shut down every afternoon for an hour to read a book and go back out after dinner. I smoked a lot of pot. We would go fishing in the morning sometimes. Didn't make any money at all but lived like a rich man's child. If I could do that again I would.

My point of asking is, if you can't implement an improvement in 1 sstation or process, then all this complicated data is worthless.
In which case all this stuff you philosophize about is worthless if you dont actually do anything about it.

I don't know that I have that particular door problem fixed. We still suffer from a certain amount of running on autopilot.

Karen came up with a great idea about using a colored shim to adjust the stick shaper from 79mm to 67mm. The shim snaps into place with a rare earth magnet.
Getting people to use that shim is not terribly difficult.

Getting them to switch from Ovolo to Shaker profile relies on the operator. We have memos taped to machines up the kazoo but it still depends on the worker not becoming inured to the memo.

A mechanical step would really fix this process. Perhaps an RS32 port hooked up to wifi would do the job. Tigerstop has something similar to this where you use an RF reader to measure a board and the reader sends instructions to the saw. We could hook something up like this I suppose. We could call it the SoulSucker-O-Matic™ and make a killing.

That is patently untrue.
Lots of good shit comes out of philosophizing.

I am reading a book right now by John Steinbeck that helps explain what's going on in the political landscape right now. I am also reading one about sharpening pixels in the digital world. The first 100 pages of that were all about the theory of sharpening. Interestingly enough it has nothing to do with sharpening and everything to do with un-sharpening. This book turns a lot of conventional wisdom upside down.

In the same way lean is really about the antithesis of efficiency. There is nothing more efficient than standing there and coping 30 doors. Until you consider balance.

You only need one door. Then you need another one.

Just like Larry pointed out: The customer does not pay you to be efficient. They pay you for things that are important to them.

In the digital sharpening world you make things sharp by making the adjacent things blurry. This is how you exploit the fact that your image has high frequency & low frequency tonal issues (think field of grain vs tiny tree leaves in the sun).

In the woodworking world this would be like make people successful by eliminating the opportunity for failure. Your focus is on the failure, not the success.

My guess is that most people are motivated more by a fear of failure than they are attracted to the reward of success.

A kid in my neighborhood used to caddy for his father at golf. His father owned the local dry goods store in a one stoplight town I grew up in. (I was country before FM was country)

To teach this kid how commerce works he would reward him for pulling the right club out of the bag depending on the hole they were playing. He started the kid out by giving him a dollar for every correct decision.

A bit later he changed the compensation package. Instead of paying him a dollar at every successful hole he gave him $18 in the parking lot when they first showed up. For every hole he pulled the wrong club his dad took away $1.

The kid learned quicker when he was shredding his profits than when he was increasing them.

Watch the movie The Founder. There is a process to every operation of a business. Checklist are a wonderful training tool for new employees, or if an employee has a question. However requiring tenured employees to constantly complete a check only turns your workers into paper pushers rather than craftsmen.

Because my shop has grown organically over the years, the location of the material to the cnc router is not ideal. This requires about 2000 extra steps and an extra 20 minutes per day for my operator.

In our business park there are several groups of employees who are all paid to go for a 20 minute walk on their lunch break.

Mr. Lean himself (Paul Akers) has written another book called Lean Health wherein he extols the virtues of getting in 10,000 steps per day.

It doesn't take much to imagine that somewhere there is a company who is working relentlessly to eliminate extra steps between machinery, and then pays those same employees to take a walk at lunch.

Cabmaker, I applaud your concern for the safety of your employees. If you really cared about them you would re-arrange your shop by placing all necessary elements for them to do their job at maximum distances in an effort for them to get in their 10,000 steps per day.

You guys need to stop looking at things through the lens of a factotum. There are several purposes to a list like this.

One of them is to help better understand where your weak spots are. If you can eliminate the weak spots you can create higher wages for your people.

Another one is help train new people. It is far easier to learn processes than to learn sequences. If you simplify your learning processes it opens up the gene pool for who would be a viable candidate.

This segues into morale. The craftsman may get grumpy over all this bureaucracy but the new kid loves it. My new kids can build flatter cabinet doors faster than your craftsmen. Is a happy group. The BTU's of happiness are similar either way.

An accomplished guy does not need to fill in a checkbox in order to successfully build something but every body else in the company needs to know whether or not the shelves got cut.

DS: Your point about walking is an interesting one. My guess is that the 20 minute stroll is more useful than the the mandatory 20 minute that emanates from value stream mapping.

I am working now on the skills it takes articulate kitchen design in video format. We are designing a project right now that involves a man & his wife, a designer, a contractor and me. Most of the dialog takes place between me and the wife but everybody else needs to be brought into the loop.

As soon as I can get this to happen elegantly I am going to produce a video to show new workers how to drive our Central Scrutinizer software. When that happens I will post it here. I am sure it will resonate with some of the guys here. I am equally sure many of them would be more comfortable with keeping their lists in their brain.

"Hostility towards management" Did I say that? I would be hostile if some clown comes at me with a clipboard or iPad to fill out before I do this or that. Leave me alone. Let me work.

As for the silly football analogy, does the quarterback have to stop and check a box before he throws the ball? And then again, after he gets up off the ground? Of course, there is a huge set of metrics on most pro sports so those managers feel they are needed. They may trust them, they may not. they may try to se past them, or can't se which is tree and which is forest. So while there are some informative numbers, why are they so often set aside for someone's gut feeling?

And the real core question, who checks boxes on the box checkers? That is, do you run metrics on the cost of implementing the check box lists? What is the cost of such a thing as it stands alone, before you attach any saving (or loss) to the process? When the bankruptcy guys come by to tag machinery, do you have them fill out a list?

For some reason, I learned long ago that management is necessary, but that it always grows to where it feels it is more needed than the shop people. That could not be more ridiculous, of course. But yet here we are, with a nation divided between those that do, and those that watch what is done. And then several layers of those wanting to measure who measures, or who makes or who does not make or how much to pay to silence the prostitute. All of which have nothing to do with the thing that needs to be made. Except for the need to have such a thing made and sold, to fund everyone else.

The funny thing is that for centuries, the doer was always bamboozled into thinking he could not act alone. That the doer actually needed a lord or boss or whatever to make his work viable. Today, with technology, one man can be much more productive than a shopful from 50 years ago. Why does he need management?

Opening scene of "Gone With The Wind": Slave stands up in a cotton field and shouts "Quittin' time!". Another slave stands up and shouts "I'm boss man around here, and I's the one who says when it's quittin' time" He looks around a bit, and shouts "Quittin' time!"

The lesson being that a man knows what he is doing, and layering management is counter productive. Exploitve. This is the managerial failure of slavery.

Basically, my work is fully reflective of a drive for quality of life. Not dollars necessarily. Not short hours. Quality of life- every day, any way I see it. This is my goal and I have achieved it and can relax. Yes, there is more work to be done, but I have run out of goals. Nothing to do but raise a glass.

Those poor people out there with clipboards or iPads will NEVER get done. There will never be a time where they can say, this is done.

I think your system of management is the perfect one for a small shop in a bucolic environment with low overhead and a co-worker who is as experienced as you are.
You said that it worked perfectly too with 8 guys. Everything worked perfectly back when customers were drunk and money was free.

Back to the craftsman approach.
There is a great role for the craftsman who is willing to be businesslike. Step 1 in this process is to recognize that one-of-a-kind work is all about making money in the future. Is hard to make money the first time. It's doable theoretically but we have agreed on this forum to eschew theory.

If you ask a craftsman how long something will take to make they will, likely as not, answer: "I have no idea. I don't even know what it looks like".

They are absolutely right about this. If something is going to be produced organically there is no way to predict many things about it.

When the craftsman is done, however, he knows everything there is to know about it. He knows what he would do differently the next time. He could probably even figure out how to involve a lesser experienced person next time. Lord knows the greenhorn would love a challenge.

A business like craftsman would have the skills to document those processes and the willingness to do that cheerfully and thoroughly.

A business like craftsman should be smart enough to focus on problems that need to be solved.

I think the world needs a better murphy bed. This is an opportunity to get really good at solving problems that need to be solved. How do you design a bed that can fit into an elevator that can also serve as a piece of dining room furniture for the one bedroom or studio apartment? How do you do this in a contemporary Asian motif vs oak Arts & Crafts or Green & Green Style How do you turn this same piece of furniture into a sewing center or a home office or a fly tying station?

I am going to go out on a limb here and opine that not very many people on this forum have actually read "Decoding the DNA of Toyota". As I recall, the very first observation is about the biggest paradox of the Toyota system is how absolute rigidity creates freedom? That is a hard one to get your head around, I agree.

They sure did figure out how to create a nimble system which is, I think, how you would describe a craftsman based company.

I've read Taiichi Ohno's book on the production system. He credits two things that most influenced his work: Henry Ford and the American super market system. I've also read H. Ford's book.

Ohno was also instrumental in developing the way organizations identify waste, with his "Seven Wastes" model. These wastes are:
1. Delay, waiting or time spent in a queue with no value being added
2. Producing more than you need
3. Over processing or undertaking non-value added activity
4. Transportation
5. Unnecessary movement or motion
6. Inventory
7. Reduction of Defects

Ohno is also known for his "Ten Precepts" to think and act to win....
You are a cost. First reduce waste.
First say, "I can do it." And try before everything.
The workplace is a teacher. You can find answers only in the workplace.
Do anything immediately. Starting something right now is the only way to win.
Once you start something, persevere with it. Do not give up until you finish it.
Explain difficult things in an easy-to-understand manner. Repeat things that are easy to understand.
Waste is hidden. Do not hide it. Make problems visible.
Valueless motions are equal to shortening one's life.
Re-improve what was improved for further improvement.
Wisdom is given equally to everybody. The point is whether one can exercise it.

While you were reading “Decoding the DNA of Toyota”, I was reading “A Breif History of Time”. To my 8 and 10 yr old kids.

A good friend joined the Peace Corps right out of college. He went to Tanzania for a 3 year stint. He hoped to help keep elephants out of the crops with a solar powered electric fence. He also wanted to help set up beehives, since the wild honey was hazardous to harvest.

His letters described nights, laying on the roof of his boma, listening to the hippos and lions at the river a mile away.

The village people made what they needed or did without. He spent 8 days trying to make a sign to bring all together to talk about honey. He had to find paint. None on hand, so he had to adapt some pastel with plant extracts to make a paint. Then he had to make a brush. Ended up using his finger. Then a nail to hang it up. Etc.

Of course by the time he did this, the whole village knew about the meeting, and did not need the sign.

After about 2 years, his parents planned a trip to visit. They asked what they could bring that the people liked. Mateyo responded “chunky peanut butter” was rarely available, and everyone loved it.
So they showed up with two cases of Jif Crunchy. They partied for a week. Everybody danced every night, from the oldest to the youngest.

The interesting after efffect is that the empty jars became the most useful objects in the village. They were mass produced, and look, this lid will fit on those jars! They could be containers, rollers for the masa, could hold the local brew while it fermented, and much much more. Amazing! The jars were proudly displayed in each family’s boma, with pride.

Meanwhile, Mateyo parents were trading for interesting things from the village. A knife with a handle made from horn and bone, a rake, mud fabrics, woven hats, etc. All handmade. All unique.

Values are relative. What we think common, others value. What we value, others seeno value.

Point being, this is a truly remarkable world. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.

The one thing that stuck with me was what Margaret Mitchell had to say about your parents never understanding you but your grandparents delighting in how you were a chip off the old block.

(interesting factoid about Ms. Mitchell. On the day she went out to the mailbox to collect her first royalty check from the publisher she turned around and was killed by a speeding automobile. She would, I imagine, certainly agree with what you had to say about stopping to smell the roses.

I read a lot. My go-to author these days is Steinbeck. He wrote about the village handyman who could do anything and would therefore always be poor.

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